Student Summer Internships at the Yale Peabody Museum

Research Project: Botany/The Yale University Herbarium

Mentor: Patrick Sweeney
Collections Manager, Division of Botany/The Yale Herbarium
Yale Peabody Museum
patrick.sweeney@yale.edu
Division of Botany/Yale Herbarium Website

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I am interested in the evolution of plant diversity, and my particular research area is plant systematics. A major, collections-based aspect of my research examines taxonomic issues surrounding a group of tropical trees commonly referred to as the mangosteens. While mangosteens are found in tropical forest throughout the world, current research focusses on Malagasy members of the group, and aims to identify new species. Presently within Madagascar, there are 32 described species of mangosteen, but recent collecting efforts suggest that there are many undescribed species.

This taxonomic work has a field component and a herbarium component that uses material housed in the Yale University Herbarium as well as material housed in other institutions. Potential Peabody intern projects would include original taxonomic research within the Malagasy mangosteens.

At right: Fieldwork in Cameroon. Inset: Mangosteen flower, Malaysia.

The Yale University Herbarium is a dynamic collection housing over 350,000 specimens from throughout the world. Researchers use material in the herbarium for a variety of purposes, from documenting the occurrence of rare and endangered species to serving as source of genetic material for evolutionary studies.

A major project underway in the Division of Botany focuses on creating a database of our holdings. Currently we are concentrating on imaging and cataloging our Connecticut material by using rapid digital specimen image and data capture technologies that include optical character recognition and voice assisted data acquisition.

To Apply

Interested? Send a one- to two-page project description, along with a letter of support from the mentor of this research project, to the internship program coordinator:

Eric Lazo-Wasem
Senior Collections Manager
Division of Invertebrate Zoology
Peabody Museum of Natural History
Yale University
P.O. Box 208118
New Haven, CT 06520-8118 USA

203.432.3784
Fax 203.432.9816
eric.lazo-wasem@yale.edu


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